The Prayer Thread is a collection of teachings and practical prompts to help as we learn to pray in community. This text was originally delivered on October 2, 2024 as a short teaching at our online weekly prayer sit.
While in labor, giving birth to my two children, I did not wail and scream as television shows often portray women in labor. I did not wail, but I did growl.
I have since heard of what some women call their “mama bear” ferocity. Even before my own work of labor in birthing my children, I had read other women’s accounts of finding the deep, low, powerful growl within. Distinct from the high-pitched, whiny sound waves of wailing, to growl is to be centered down and grounded. To growl is to claim a spot, or an action, and protect it, commit to it.
To the extent that my particular experience of finding my growl during childbirth allowed me to more fully enter into the all-consuming power of bringing forth new life, we could say that it was a participation in the life-giving activity of the work of the Spirit. In this frame, then, I might also claim the activity as prayer that is fierce. To pray fiercely is to be all-in, to stretch out to the limits of life and death, to persist in presenting oneself before the Holy One until the last ounce of energy is exerted.
In these times of seeming social and cultural and environmental upheaval, may both our daily lives and our life of prayer be marked by the ferocity of mama bear!
